


Desert Rose

by theclaravoyant



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Dysphoria, F/M, Gen, Gender Dysphoria, Hurt/Comfort, Post Maveth, Pre-Relationship FitzSimmons, Trans Character, Trans Female Character, Trans Jemma, canon compatible, positive female friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-09
Updated: 2018-06-09
Packaged: 2019-05-19 22:56:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14882802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theclaravoyant/pseuds/theclaravoyant
Summary: When Jemma returns from Maveth she struggles with dysphoria because of the way her body has changed. Fitz and Daisy offer gestures of care and comfort to help her cope.





	Desert Rose

**Author's Note:**

> Trans!Jemma (AMAB). Platonish/Pre Relationship FitzSimmons, platonic Skimmons, Bus Kids. (though as usual, I don't mind if you'd prefer to read other ships/potential futures into it).
> 
> CW: contains gender dysphoria & associated angst

The first thing Jemma did when she got back to base, once all the tests had cleared and her drip run empty, was to demand a shower. The others were hesitant, glancing at each other back and forth, but there was no protocol for this. She could stand, and she could walk, though shakily, and she was determined, so they let her to the showers on the proviso that she have somebody waiting outside in case she slipped, fell, or ran into some other trouble. 

“I want Fitz,” she mumbled. Not only because he was the first one she thought of, but because he was the only one who’d really seen her like this before. With her deflated chest and bony hips. With her ugly, halfway body. 

Of course, Fitz agreed without question to be her person, and nobody objected, so Jemma washed herself with shaking limbs and wept quietly at her relief, at her weakness, at everything as the dirt from Maveth was swept away. It would take her many more times and much more vigorous scrubbing than this to send the last of the grit down the drain, of course, but for now it was enough to feel her own skin again. It was enough to hobble out from the water into Fitz’s awaiting arms, and into a soft, warm towel and then a soft, warm dressing gown, and let him lead her on his arm to a soft, warm bed. 

By the time she got there, she was almost feeling brave enough... She waited with the request on her tongue, while Fitz set up a few things here and there. Her room was a mess, half in and half out of storage, but he set her a cup of water and a nightlight, gave her a thick and heavy woolen pullover that was large enough to sleep in, and dragged a chair to her bedside. He looked just about to ask if she wanted him to stay, or perhaps to read something to her, when she interrupted with her own request instead.

“Can I see it?” 

“See… what?” Fitz asked, hesitantly. He could already take a guess at the answer. 

“My face,” Jemma filled in anyway. “I want to see it. I didn’t look in the bathroom. Foggy mirrors. But I want to see.” 

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” Fitz warned. 

“No, show me,” Jemma insisted. “I’m ready, I want to see.” 

Fitz took a deep breath, and pulled his shaving kit onto his lap. Hoping against hope that it would not disturb her as much as it had the rest of them, he lifted a small round shaving mirror to Jemma’s face. 

Jemma felt her jaw slowly slacken as she stared. The face in the mirror was gaunt, cheeks sunken and bony. Its skin was a grayish colour, though that could have been partly the lighting, which was still dim in here to accommodate her sensitive eyes. Jemma lifted her fingers to her cheek, to the place where an uneven, stubbly attempt at a beard was breaking through the skin in the face in the mirror, and when she felt it on her own skin, she yelped and waved at Fitz-

“Put it away!”

Immediately, he lowered the mirror, taking it out of her reach as the slow numbness of shock was ripped away, and the reality of what she’d seen broke through with a horrifying vengeance. 

“That’s what I look like now?!” she cried, struggling not to hyperventilate. “I’m – I’m a _freak,_ Fitz, I’m-I’m-I’m- “

Her lips curled around the words, desperate to find one that was bad enough, the right kind of bad, to hurl at the skeletal ghost in the tiny mirror. Instead she found Fitz’s hand, catching hers as she clenched and unclenched her fists; part of her wanting to break the mirror against a wall, and another part of her – some sick, self loathing part - wanting to snatch it off him and look at it again until she screamed. But Fitz kept the mirror face down on the table beside him, and gently eased her down from the frantic edge.

“You’re just different,” he assured her. “You’ve been off your medication for six months, and you’ve barely eaten or slept… of course you don’t look or feel like yourself right now. But it’s okay, Jemma. It’s going to be okay. We’re going to get you back to the person you want to be. I promise.” 

Jemma took a deep breath, reassuring herself of the wisdom in his words. She was responding to a biological impulse to see herself a different way, and to the lack of control she’d had over the fact that what she saw now was so wrong. She was not responding to a wrongness in herself. She’d long since accepted that. It was just hard to face the fact that years of cultivating her outer self to match her inner had been thrown so far off course. It was just another reason, she supposed, to be glad she was rid of that god-awful planet. 

“I brought my shaving kit,” Fitz offered, once he had felt her begin to calm. “I was going to show you when you woke up, but I think we can cheat a little, eh? I could even do it, if you like. That way you won’t have to look at yourself.” 

“Yes please.” 

Jemma’s voice shook, with anxiety and with shame that she could be so put out by a little facial hair. She twisted her fingers into her bedsheets, forcing herself to keep still when her instincts begged her to throw the blankets over herself, to curl up and hide. Her face was wrong. Her chest was wrong – she’d long since gotten used to that on Maveth, as not only her hormone imbalance, but starvation and living in perpetual stress made all her fatty tissue sink and sag. Yet Fitz made no comment or quip about her skittishness, her appearance, or her moment of weakness: he simply set about doing the best he could to shave her face. It was odd, trying to do it in third person, but he moved slowly and with care, and eventually, her cheeks were smooth again. 

“There,” he said. “All clean, okay?” 

Jemma nodded, but her fingers would not unhook from the knot of blankets now. She couldn’t bear the thought of touching her face and finding it still like it was. 

Seeing her hesitation, Fitz lowered the razor and came to sit on the side of the bed with her. He cupped her face, and tenderly brushed his fingers over her cheeks, so that she could feel the smooth sensation. 

“Oh,” he murmured, apologetic, when she winced at one spot. “I think I got you a bit there. I’m sorry.” 

He brushed his finger over it once more, wishing there was more he could do to ease even her smallest of pains, and then exhaled, and rested his forehead against hers. They breathed together, a thousand words unspoken between them, until slowly, Jemma extracted one hand from the blankets, and tentatively reached up to touch her own face. Finding it just as smooth as Fitz had promised, her shoulders sagged with relief, and Fitz enveloped her in his arms while she collapsed as though the tide was going out. Her pain and distress made Fitz’s heart ache, and tears sprung to his eyes at the thought of the state of deprivation she must have been in, that something so simple as a shave could bring her such consolation. Still, he was glad to give it, and glad to hold Jemma for as long as she needed against the overwhelming weight of everything. He cradled her head against his chest and stroked her hair, and hummed what he could remember of a little lullaby he’d once known. 

Some time later, there came a quiet knock at the door. 

“It’s me,” Daisy announced herself. 

“Come in,” Fitz replied.

“Don’t look at me,” Jemma sniveled, pressing herself deeper into Fitz as Daisy, averting her eyes as best she could, shuffled uncertainly into the room. It was dark and the furniture layout was unfamiliar, with the small table and chair Fitz had brought in to sit with Jemma, and boxes of her things halfway out of storage scattered about the room. 

“I’m not looking,” Daisy promised, finding the table with her fingers and setting upon it the gifts she had brought. “I brought your medication, is all. Sorry it took me so long, some of it had gone out of date, but I found some and put in an order for more. Should be sorted now.” 

“Thank you, Daisy,” Jemma sniffed.

Daisy brushed her hands on her pants, trying to keep her eyes on the corner of the roof. It was dark in here, and she couldn’t have seen much of whatever Jemma looked like now even if she’d wanted to, but Jemma had been cripplingly self-conscious the whole plane ride home and there was no need to make it worse just because her instinct was to look for what would be an all but shapeless blob. Still, her fingers were itching, her arms yearning to wrap around Jemma and give her the human contact Daisy knew she would have missed most, if she’d been in Jemma’s place. But Jemma didn’t want that, clearly, so Daisy’d done the best she could to come up with a compromise.

“I, uh, I also brought my makeup over,” she said. “The restock run’s this weekend, but in the meantime, I thought you could use mine. You know, if you wanted. I’m not sure where it is on your priority list exactly, hopefully below eating, but it- it’s on the table anyway. Just there.” 

“I’m not sure that’s a wise idea,” Fitz explained, as Jemma seemed reticent to answer. “Mirrors aren’t agreeing with her right now.”

“That doesn’t matter,” Daisy replied, still addressing Jemma though it was Fitz at whom she grinned. “I’m sure Fitz can manage some simple foundation or something. And if he can’t, well, the Internet will get a kick out of it, apparently.” 

She snorted, and heard a muffled sound from Jemma that could have been the same. 

“Or, you know,” she continued, with a little more sobriety. “I could help.” 

“…Really?” 

Jemma’s voice was skeptical, but less muted now: no longer mumbling into Fitz’s shirt, though she was still careful to keep herself hidden. 

“I mean, I’d have to be able to look at you,” Daisy clarified. “I’m not _that_ good. But if mirrors aren’t working for you and you still want to have makeup, even if it’s just to bum around in bed with, then sure, absolutely I’ll do it.” 

“Can you fix my lips?” 

“Sure can. I’ve got all your favourite shades in there. Marshmallow. Sweet Dreams. Sugar Plum.” 

“Can you fix my nails?” 

“Well, it’ll be nothing fancy, but I’ve got files and clippers and a few options for colours. Clear varnish too. And we can get some strengthener in if they’re real bad.” 

“Can you fix my cheeks?”

Daisy bit her tongue. She was struck once again by the image of pulling Jemma’s body out of the rubble. She could have sworn she was dead for a second there: the haggard, discoloured flesh and threadbare clothing so unlike Jemma’s living form it had seemed impossible. Clearly, and thankfully, it was not though, so Daisy tried to act accordingly. 

“I mean, I can sure as hell try,” she offered with bravado, and smiled, gesturing to show herself off to a place somewhere between Jemma, and the place on the roof she was staring at pretending it was Jemma. “Have you seen this face? Ya girl contours like a boss.” 

She waited for a long moment while Jemma thought it over. She resisted the urge to clear her throat in the silence, wondering if perhaps she should just cut her losses and take her leave. But out of the corner of her eye, she saw Jemma move; creeping out from the embrace of Fitz’s arms like a nervous baby bird, and peeking at the make-up bag Daisy had offered. She glanced up at its owner with tears still shining in her eyes. 

“Would you, Daisy?” she requested quietly. “Please?” 

Daisy lowered her eyes from the Very Interesting Corner. She sat in the chair Fitz had abandoned, and gently took in the look of Jemma’s face. Now that the dust and grime and discolouration had been cleared up, she didn’t look quite so much like a zombie, which was reassuring, but she could see why Jemma and the mirror were on bad terms. She did not look at all like herself, and that was yet another thing Maveth had tried to take away. And failed. 

“Thank you, Daisy,” Fitz said, and squeezed Jemma’s hand lightly. “Is it okay if I leave you two alone for a bit?” 

Jemma nodded, and Fitz stood.

“Let me know if you need me,” he said. “When you’re done, I’ll bring you something to eat.” 

With that, he took his leave. Jemma returned her empty hands to the bedsheets, still a little anxious, but curious as Daisy busied herself rummaging around in her makeup bag. She was taking her time, letting Jemma get used to the idea, before she pulled out a bottle and a palate of foundation. She poured a little from the bottle onto her hand, and gently began to apply it to Jemma’s proffered face. She was prepared to work in silence, but it didn’t take long before Jemma spoke again.

“So, um,” she began experimentally. “You changed your name. Do you mind if I ask why?”


End file.
